SuburbanOneSports.com recognizes a male and female featured athlete each week. The awards, sponsored by Univest, are given to seniors of good character who are students in good standing that have made significant contributions to their teams. Selections are based on nominations received from coaches, athletic directors and administrators.
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Female Athlete (Week of May 28, 2015)
Call it a triumphant journey for Nicole Yanni. The North Penn senior – sidelined with a knee injury for the better part of the last three years – probably didn’t have any business playing softball this season. If it had been up to her doctor, she would have called it a career a long time ago. In truth, most athletes would have, but Yanni is not most athletes. Hers is a story of perseverance and determination, a story of passion for her sport that simply would not let Yanni walk away without one last go-round. And what a go-round it was for the senior second baseman, who batted cleanup for a Maidens’ squad that captured the SOL Continental Conference title. “As a sophomore, she was going to be a starter for me at second base, but she had a knee problem,” North Penn coach Rick Torresani said. “I told her last year she was going to be a main person as a junior, and that’s why she tried so hard to come back this year. She worked so hard in the offseason, knowing this would be her last season and knowing that she would be a critical person in the lineup.”
Yanni’s knee injury was not your typical knee injury, and it wasn’t her only injury. She missed both her seventh and eighth grade softball seasons with an ankle injury that was initially misdiagnosed. The signs of a trouble began in ninth grade when her knee popped out after hyperextending her leg during a baseball game that winter. “We got it checked out, but they didn’t see a problem,” said Yanni, who played with her Harleysville Thunderbirds travel squad that summer. “Come fall of 10th grade when I was going out for the fall workouts, I dove for a ball, and that’s when it completely popped out.” It marked the beginning of a long and grueling ordeal that included – in January of her sophomore year – surgery for lateral release of the kneecap. She was sidelined her entire sophomore season but was able to play travel ball that summer. Yanni was poised to make her return as a junior, but her knee made it impossible. “We were going to doctor’s appointments, we were doing things like cortisone shots,” she said. “My doctor told me to shut it down.”
Those were fighting words for Yanni, who rehabbed tirelessly to ensure she could return. Her return to the lineup this spring hit a bump in the road when – in the Maidens’ fourth game of the season – she suffered a concussion. Once again she was sidelined, but she returned to the lineup to bat .385 and was a key contributor to the success of a Maidens’ squad that close out its season with a 19-3 record. “She’s unbelievable,” Torresani said. “Nicole is one of those girls that was one of the leaders. She’s a good student in the classroom, well liked by everybody.”
Although knee issues will prevent her from playing collegiate softball, Yanni hopes to one day help others who are struggling with similar injuries. This fall, she will attend Penn State-Altoona where she will major in kinesiology with plans to pursue a career in physical therapy.
To read Yanni’s complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/nicole-yanni-0053944
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete (Week of May 28, 2015)
When Casey Comber gave up the team sport of soccer to take up cross country and became a year-round runner, he did anything but fall into the trap of being a narcissist. The Hatboro-Horsham senior credits his teammates, past and present, for pushing him to be better and for teaching him to be the leader he became as an upperclassman. “It was all about the team,” he said of the transition from soccer to cross country. “All the runners always got along real well.” As his coach, Russ Coleman saw the value in the Villanova-bound runner beyond his record-setting career at Hatboro-Horsham. “Casey has been an outstanding man to work with the last four years,” said the coach who coaxed Comber into running cross country, which became his key to the collegiate level. “He leads by example, by his words and by his outstanding character. Casey often puts his teammates before himself. He has been an outstanding role model for the underclassmen and his peers. I have found working with Casey a pleasure as he is extremely coachable and always looking to improve and open to instructions.” Coleman pointed to the times when Comber finished ahead of the pack in a cross country race and then doubled back to cheer on the rest of his teammates or to occasions when he volunteered to join relay teams to bolster teammates’ chances of qualifying for championship races.
When Comber entered high school, he was barely five feet and, literally, a 90-pound weakling. He credits hard training and a fortuitous growth spurt between his sophomore and junior seasons for moving onto the radar screen as a junior. The results – with a litany of district and state medals and school records – are self-evident. Comber selected Villanova for its combination of a renowned track program and business and finance program, saying it was “the best fit, both academically and track-wise.” His other options included the likes of Georgetown, Iona, Penn State, Cornell and Penn. The common denominator was that each sets a high academic bar.
As his senior project, Comber, who is active in Hatboro-Horsham’s National Honor Society, took on the role of organizer for a 5K run with the proceeds donated to the Leukemia Foundation in honor of Coleman’s seven-year-old niece, Bronwyn, who is currently in remission from leukemia. “(Coach Coleman) gave me so much,” said Comber. “He got me into running. It was the least I could do for him.” Comber’s empathy toward others also was revealed through the Partnership Club, which traveled to the Broad Street Ministry once a month.
Comber, who finished fifth in the 3200m at the state meet this spring, leaves Hatboro-Horsham with school records in the 3000, 3200 and 5K.
To view Comber’s complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/casey-comber-0053945
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